Cold Heart (40 page)

‘Could I see it?’ Lorraine asked, stepping forward. Fischer tried to open the case, but it was locked. He set it down and took the briefcase to his desk: Lorraine saw that it fastened with a zipper, had flat, beaten metal handles and two outside pockets – in one of which was a mobile telephone.

‘Could I see that?’ She already had her hand out. The manager hesitated, then passed her the phone. She pressed the green power button, then Recall. The telephone bleeped, and Lorraine began to scroll through the digits logged in the memory.

‘Should you be doing that?’ Fischer asked nervously.

‘It’s all right, I’m not using it to make a call, just checking something.’

She took out her notebook and jotted down number after number – none she recognized – then tried to bring up the last number dialled, but got a blank screen and a bleep. She noted the make and serial number of the phone, then turned it off. ‘Thank you.’ She handed it back, and the man put it back where he had taken it from.

‘Perhaps there’s a note inside the briefcase,’ he said.

He was now very uneasy, but Lorraine moved quickly to unzip the case. Like the locked suitcase, the briefcase was old and worn, but had been expensive. It opened into two halves and Vallance’s name had been monogrammed on one corner. The compartments on one side contained writing paper and envelopes, some letters held together with a rubber band, a paperback novel, a manicure set, some hotel toiletries, and a Cartier pen. On the other side were three scripts, some flattering publicity photographs of Vallance, some postcards of India and, tucked deep inside, a worn manilla envelope.

Lorraine removed the old movie stills, and another photograph of Harry Nathan and Vallance together, arms around one another, smiling into the camera. A third person had been crudely cut out of the photo, but Lorraine could see the edge of a woman’s dress and a picture hat: he had been unable to cut the section off completely because the woman’s arm was resting on Nathan’s shoulder. Lorraine recognized the strong hand and close-trimmed nails as Sonja Nathan’s.

There was another larger, plain envelope, and Lorraine opened it to reveal several sheets of expensive, flimsy paper in a feminine pink, which she recognized at once. Her pulse speeded up as she took them out and unfolded them carefully. The bottom of the first sheet of paper was missing – it had been cut in two after the words ‘Dear Raymond’ and the date, some six months previously, scrawled in ink in Cindy Nathan’s childish script. Lorraine flipped open the manicure set, knowing what she would find: a small pair of round-tipped scissors, the blades less than an inch long, with which Vallance had cut one of the desperate letters in half to fake a suicide note.

Poor Cindy, Lorraine thought. Her hunch had been right. The girl hadn’t committed suicide: the last of the parade of men who had entered her life, first to desire, then to abuse her, had destroyed her. Not that it mattered now: there could be no doubt as to Vallance’s guilt, and now he was dead himself. That he had murdered Cindy made it more likely that he had killed Harry Nathan too. Perhaps she had the solution to the Nathan case right there in her hands, and she could leave the affair now with a clear conscience, do her best to find Feinstein’s art, and go back to her own life.

But
why
had Vallance killed Cindy? Lorraine thought back to the morning he had come to her office, the night after Cindy died, with a wafer-thin veneer of normality concealing a state of considerable emotional turmoil. He had talked compulsively about Nathan and the past and, as she replayed the conversation in her mind, virtually the first words out of his mouth had been hatred and condemnation of the women around Nathan. He had raved about how they had cheapened and damaged his idol, and how he believed Cindy had been responsible for her husband’s death, though she would never have been convicted of his murder. The motive that seemed most likely was a desire on Vallance’s part to exact vengeance for Nathan on the woman who killed him, which made it most unlikely that Vallance had shot Nathan himself, unless he had completely lost his mind. But having spoken to him shortly before his death, Lorraine knew that that wasn’t so. So who
had
killed Nathan? Would Kendall have killed him to prevent the porn tapes becoming public? Or could it somehow have been Sonja? Lorraine found it hard to believe that it was pure coincidence that Vallance shot himself in the Hamptons, within a few miles of Sonja Nathan’s house, shortly after calling her . . .

Lorraine replaced everything as she had found it, and zipped up the case. She wanted to get out and was already planning a diversion to Santa Fe. She said to the manager, ‘Don’t let me prevent you any longer from attending to business, and thank you very much for your help. I’d pass these on to the police.’ Then she hurried out to avoid any further conversation. She had found nothing relating to paintings or secret bank accounts, and no reason why Vallance had shot himself.

Lorraine sat down at a vacant table in the sun lounge and ordered a Coke and a prosciutto sandwich. She looked over the list of phone numbers she had taken down from Vallance’s mobile, then circled one. She was sure the code was for Santa Fe. She was so immersed in her own thoughts that she jumped when Fischer slid down beside her, and told her in conspiratorial tones that the police were sending someone to collect Mr Vallance’s luggage. She felt the man’s breath on her face as he whispered that he had not mentioned that she had opened it.

‘Good, and perhaps you’d better not mention that I was asking questions either – you know, there’s always competition between the police in different counties.’

‘Oh – well, yes, if you say so.’

‘Is this a Santa Fe code?’ she asked, repeating the number.

‘I believe so, but I can check it out for you.’

‘You could go one better and call the number for me. I’d like to know who it’s registered to.’ She gave him a cool smile, and he glided away. Lorraine finished her Coke and sandwich, then walked out to Reception to collect her luggage.

A uniformed police officer was standing at the desk talking to Carina, who was handing over Vallance’s cases, and Lorraine made out the same words that had been on everyone’s lips all day – terrible, tragedy, unexpected – and Sonja Nathan’s name.

‘Of course, she’d known him more than twenty years,’ she heard the officer say. ‘She looked like she’d seen a ghost when I gave her the news.’

‘Excuse me,’ Lorraine said, glancing around quickly to make sure that Fischer was not nearby – she did not want him to see her talking to the officer and deduce that she was not, as she had said, working in association with the local police. ‘Did you say you had to break the news of Raymond Vallance’s death to Mrs Nathan?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Muller said, viewing her with interest.

‘I know Mrs Nathan, I visited with her yesterday, and I wondered if perhaps I should call her. Was she very distressed?’ Lorraine said, concern in her voice.

‘Well, she was shaken,’ Muller said. ‘I knew she would be.’

‘That’s the difference between a city like LA and a place like this,’ Lorraine gushed, trying to get him to say more. ‘There’s no way a city police department would ever have time to go and break the news of a friend’s death personally to someone.’

Well,’ Muller said, ‘it isn’t usually part of the service here either. It’s just that I was driving right past her gates when I got the news.’

‘Goodness, how awful,’ Lorraine went on, hoping he would not guess that she was fishing. ‘So you had to tell her just a few minutes after he died?’

‘Just about,’ Muller said, eyeing Lorraine closely. ‘You a friend of hers?’

‘Not a close friend,’ Lorraine said, keen now not to talk to him for too long. ‘I know some connections of hers in Los Angeles and, since I was in the area, I gave her a call. I’m leaving now, actually – I’m just waiting to pick up my bags.’

She caught sight of Fischer coming towards her from the other side of the lobby with her case, and moved off to intercept him before he reached the desk. She gave Muller a final sweet smile, which she hoped convinced him that she was just an innocent visitor.

‘The number – I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you quicker, but the phones are still going crazy. It was Santa Fe, and the subscriber is Mr Nicholas Nathan.’

‘Thank you for your help,’ she said. And despite his previous strictures, she slipped a hundred-dollar bill into his hand. He watched her leave, then turned to Vern Muller who had joined him.

‘Who is that lady?’ Muller asked him curiously.

‘Mrs Page?’ Fischer replied. ‘She’s a private investigator working on the Harry Nathan murder inquiry. She said she was working with the police in LA and had full co-operation from you.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ the officer said. ‘If she has, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. She looks more like a newspaper reporter to me.’

‘Well, she’s gone now, whoever she is,’ Fischer said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Sonja tucked the comforter round Arthur: he was fast asleep and snoring. Sometimes he looked like a scruffy kid, and she felt such a touching warmth towards him. He took such care of her, and she loved him for it, had not realized how much until today. She moved quietly around the room, then went to a closet to select the clothes she wanted to pack and get out her case. She heard a car drawing up in the driveway and went into the other bedroom to look out to the front of the house. Vern Muller had sweat stains under the armpits of his blue uniform shirt, and was hitching up his navy police-issue trousers over his paunch. He tossed his hat into the rear seat, then looked at the house. Sonja saw him stop to admire her beloved garden before he set off up the path. She went downstairs and had the door open before he could wake Arthur by knocking or ringing the bell. ‘Hi, Mrs Nathan. Sorry to bother you again,’ he said, walking up the steps.

‘Not at all, Vern,’ Sonja said. ‘Come on in.’

‘I won’t, Mrs Nathan, if you don’t mind,’ the police officer went on. ‘I just stopped by to ask you if you know a lady named Lorraine Page.’

‘Well, yes, I do,’ Sonja said carefully. ‘She called out here yesterday. She’s a PI working for my late husband’s lawyer in connection with the estate.’

‘That’s the story she told Fischer in the hotel, but when I spoke to her she said she was just a friend,’ Muller went on. ‘She told him and me another couple of things that weren’t true, and she seemed pretty interested in this stuff about Raymond Vallance too – asked me if you were shocked and so on.’ Sonja kept her face impassive. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if she was some journalist come out here to dig dirt, or if you saw your name plastered with his across the papers,’ the police officer concluded.

If that was all Lorraine was interested in, that was fine, Sonja thought privately. ‘Thanks for warning me, Vern,’ Sonja said. ‘I’ll be careful what I say to her if she calls again.’

‘Something about that lady makes me think she’s looking to cause trouble for you,’ Muller said. ‘Take care now.’

‘You too, Vern,’ Sonja said, and closed the door. She leaned back against it for a moment. Upstairs Arthur lay sleeping. For the first time she had begun to believe that things were changing, that the dead hand of the past was losing its grip on her and a new life waiting to begin. There was only one person who could possibly stand in her way now – and that person was Lorraine Page.

Lorraine stared out of the window. There had been an accident, and the traffic tailed back for miles on both sides. They had been stationary for fifteen minutes, and the driver had got out to try to see what was going on. ‘Nothing anyone can do,’ he said, climbing back up. ‘They’re waiting for the recovery truck with a crane to drag two cars off the road, and there’s a third overturned. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen.’

A collective moan went up, and Lorraine swore – she had been cutting it fine anyway, and now she doubted that she would catch the plane. The frustrating thing was that all she could do was sit and wait. She had been unable to concentrate on the book she’d bought, about art fraud through the centuries, so she opened her notebook. There were a few leads she could take further, but she was really no closer to finding either the missing money or the paintings than when she had first arrived.

She turned to a clean page. What if Nathan had poured the money from the sale of the paintings back into his films? If that was the case, then there must be some record, but the investigation was cold. What if Nathan’s brother had worked the fakes scam? He was family, would have got a slice of the money, and might even know where Harry had stashed it. She had to see him.

The bus jolted, advanced a few hundred yards, Lorraine stared out of the window. One of the vehicles going in the opposite direction was a cream Rolls-Royce, which brought Raymond Vallance to her mind.

What had made him kill himself? She turned to a fresh page in her notebook. Harry Nathan – dead, shot. Cindy Nathan – dead, probably murdered by Vallance. Kendall Nathan – dead, accidental fire? Raymond Vallance – dead, suicide. Lorraine tapped her teeth with the pen. Was it all a bit coincidental? Could Sonja have threatened him with the videotapes? What if there was no coincidence, but intent? She grimaced.

The bus moved forward another hundred yards before it stopped again, but Lorraine wasn’t counting the minutes until her flight to LA. She had made up her mind that Santa Fe was her next destination.

B
Y THE time Lorraine arrived in New York it was almost eleven thirty p.m. and her flight to Los Angeles had long gone. She booked into the Park Meridian hotel and started to make some calls. She had to arrange travel to Santa Fe, first thing in the morning, and she knew she had to call Jake. As she dialled his number, part of her longed to hear his voice, but the other part, knowing what she was about to say, hoped that his answerphone would pick up.

Jake answered the phone almost immediately it rang.

‘Lorraine!’ he said, pure pleasure in his voice. ‘Where are you? Do you want me to come pick you up?’

‘Actually,’ she began weakly, ‘I’m still in New York.’